warrant
Definitions
General English
- noun an official document from a court giving someone permission to do something
Commerce
- verb to show that something is reasonable
Economics
- verb to provide a warranty for a product
Law
- noun an official document from a court which allows someone to do something
- noun an official document authorising the payment of money
Military
- noun a document which authorizes a person to do something
Origin & History of “warrant”
Warrant probably goes back ultimately to werenti ‘protector’, a noun use of the present participle of Old high German werren ‘protect’, which in turn was formed from the base *wer- ‘watch, be on one’s guard, take care’ (source of English ward, wary, etc). this was borrowed into medieval Latin as warantus, and passed into English via Old Northern French warant. The central Old French form of the word was garant, which passed into English via Spanish as guarantee.
